NEBULAE: THE UNIVERSE UNVEILED

16x9

Gifted by Jonathan and Elizabeth Howland
Veil Nebula, NGC 6960, Cygnus Loop
Release Date: September 24, 2015 10:00AM (EDT)

Nebulae: The Universe Unveiled
December 10th - March 9th, 2025

Nebulae: The Universe Unveiled celebrates a remarkable new gift to the Art Museum: six awe-inspiring NASA photographs of deep space, captured by the Webb and Hubble Telescopes. Selected by Mark Munkacsy, President of the Astronomical Society of Southern New England, these images are more than just breathtaking; they are rich visual documents that reveal and contextualize some of the universe’s most profound events, from the birth and death of stars to the echoes of the Big Bang, the ongoing expansion of the cosmos, humanity’s origins, and the search for extraterrestrial life.

At the intersection of art and science, this exhibition presents these celestial images as radiant works of art, framed by contemporary artists’ imaginative explorations of the night sky, deep space, and our place within the cosmos.

Nebulae: The Universe Unveiled also features: Space, an experimental film by Jing Wang and Harvey Goldman; a collection of stunning Northern Lights photography by artist and designer Rosanne Somerson; Rachel Ostrow’s abstract paintings evoking the cosmos’ vast mystery; and intricately embroidered thread paintings by self-taught artist David Poyant. Together, these works invite visitors to journey through the universe’s depths, discovering wonder, science, and beauty.

Harvey Goldman and Jing Wang
Space

ARTIST BIOS
Artist Bio

Jing Wang, a composer and virtuoso erhu artist, was born in China. Ms. Wang has participated in numerous musical communities, as a composer and a performer of diverse styles of music. Her compositions have been selected and presented in China, Spain, France, Italy, Serbia, Turkey, Romania, Russia, Australia, Japan, Argentina, and throughout the United States. They have also been recognized by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers and Electro-acoustic Miniatures International Contest Spain. She was the winner of 2006 Pauline Oliveros Prize given by the International Alliance for Women in Music and has been awarded the MacDowell Colony Fellowship, the Vilcek Foundation Fellowship, and the Omi International Musicians Residency Fellowship.

As an active erhu performer, she has introduced the Chinese indigenous erhu into Western contemporary music scene with her wide array of compositions for chamber ensemble, avant- garde jazz improvisations and multicultural ensembles. She has also successfully performed erhu concertos with several symphony orchestras in the United States. Ms. Wang is currently an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth where she teaches electroacoustic music, composition, and music theory.

Harvey Goldman has created critically acclaimed work in the fields of ceramics, digital imaging, experimental film and music. He is founder of the Digital Media program at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Ford Foundation and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. Goldman's work is included in numerous private and public collections including the Iota Center for Experimental Animation, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Everson Museum of Art, Decordova Museum, Currier Museum of Art, American Museum of Ceramic Art and the Crocker Art Museum. His film work has been screened throughout the world including, the Smithsonian's Hirshhon Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., the White Box Museum, Beijing, China and the Museum of Kyoto, Japan.

His interests include gardening, storytelling, contemporary classical music, quantum mechanics and basketball. He resides in Dartmouth, Massachusetts with his wife and fellow artist, Deborah Coolidge.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Artist Statement

Space, the infinite eternal void, unfathomable, immeasurable, unfurling the serenity of emptiness, neither holiness nor wisdom, without righteousness nor justice, neither enterprise nor profit, infinitely patient, tranquil yet tumultuous.

The “visual music” collaborations of Jing Wang and Harvey Goldman attempt to produce a synesthesia like experience. The audience is encouraged to “see” the music and “hear” the visuals. The imagery and audio components are constructed without hierarchy, a true melding of sound and image.
Secret Chord, 2015

Rachel Ostrow
Secret Chord, 2015
Oil on panel
14”x 12”

Touch, 2019

Rachel Ostrow
Touch, 2019
Oil on panel
12”x 14”

ARTIST BIO
Artist Bio

Rachel Ostrow is a Brooklyn-based painter and printmaker.   She earned an M.F.A. in painting from Hunter College, a post-baccalaureate degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and a B.A. in Fine Arts from Wesleyan University.

She has had solo exhibitions at Morgan Lehman Gallery (Manhattan, NY), Planthouse (Manhattan, NY), The Cill Rialaig Project (Ballinskelligs, Ireland), 42 Social Club (Lyme, CT), Sunday Takeout (Brooklyn, NY), The Kenan Center (Lockport, NY),  John Davis Gallery, (Hudson, NY), Saffron (Brooklyn, NY), and Todojunto Gallery (Barcelona, Spain). She has been included in exhibitions in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Montreal, Joshua Tree, CA, Santa Barbara, CA, Great Barrington, MA, and Toledo, OH.

She has been awarded residencies at the Cill Rialag Project (Ballinskelligs, Ireland), The Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), The Kimmel Harding Nelsen Center (Nebraska City, NE), The Millay Colony (Austerlitz, NY), The Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency (Joshua Tree, CA), and The Gowanus Studio Space (Brooklyn, NY).

Her work is included in the public collections of the Burchfield Penney Art Center, Capital Group, Fidelity and the Montefiore Einstein Hospital.  It has been written about in Artforum, The New York Times and The Niagara Gazette.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Artist Statement

My paintings are filled with the energy of chance and discovery.Existing somewhere between what is recognizable and what is otherworldly or abstract, they play with form, space, movement, light and character. They indulge in the mystery and changeability of perception and give authority to the viewer’s imagination to navigate their own visual experience.

I am fascinated by the interconnectedness of the body and the mind and how physical movement and gesture can create visual illusions of space and form. Painting with a squeegee, I unearth images by spreading transparent paint around on a slippery panel. I add paint with a brush and throw paint and mediums at the surface. Then, with varied speed, pressure and gesture, I draw over those marks with the squeegee. The paint combines under pressure from the rubber blade and mixes based on its material properties.  When the colors and mediums are pushed together, they form detailed passages that are irregular and mimic the natural world.

The gesture of my mark is (somewhat) controlled, but the way the paint reacts underneath it is not. The paintings exist as physical records of movement, both natural and woman-made. They embody the relationship between intention and chance, echoing the dynamic in our universe between order and chaos.
purple green skirt 3804

Rosanne Somerson
Purple Green Skirt 3804

red green 4023

Rosanne Somerson
Red Green

ARTIST BIO
Artist Bio

A designer, professor and academic leader, Rosanne Somerson has been advancing art and design for decades.After launching a successful studio design practice, she returned to RISD to teach and then co-founded the Furniture Design Department before serving as Provost, interim President, RISD’s 17th President, and now President Emerita.

An author and subject of many podcasts, she frequently speaks and writes about the power of art and design as core elements of critical thinking and making. She maintains a studio and consulting creative practice, designing and creating furniture and photographs for exhibitions and commissions. Her works have been prominently featured in numerous publications and exhibited in major museums and galleries throughout the globe, including the Musée des Arts Décoratifs at the Louvre in Paris, and she is also represented in many private, corporate and museum collections.

Somerson is included in the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art Oral History Project and has been awarded many honors including two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Renwick Alliance Distinguished Crafts Educator Award, a 2019 Pell Award for Outstanding Leadership in the Arts, a Lifetime Distinction Award from the Furniture Society, is a named Fellow of the American Craft Council and a Life Trustee of Haystack Mountain School.

ARTIST STATEMENT
Artist Statement

I liken natural phenomena to material, or media, the way that wood, glass, stone are used to make things. Spending decades building furniture and objects I am familiar with the clear notion of a material like wood as a medium. But recently I have explored more amorphous natural “media”. Water has captivated my recent work, for its multi-sensory experience of pattern, volume, texture. Some feels velvety with colors lighting on reflective surfaces, while others resonate depth and layering, as if what we see on the surface is merely a cross-section of what is below.

The sky is a similar kind of space, that inspires thought and images. Pursuing a life-long desire to experience the Northern Lights, I headed near the Arctic Circle to Yellowknife, Canada in the Northwest Territories. Recognizing that this year is a peak year in the cycle of solar flares, it was time to go. From 10pm -2am each night for five nights we went “aurora hunting” with a Dene First Nation guide, who grew up with these skies his whole life yet was remarkably enthusiastic with each splendid display, as if seeing them for the first time. We were awed by these glorious shape-shifting skies every night of the five. This was not just a visual experience. We felt as if the modulating sky enveloped us, like a fabric. I learned to train my eye to see more deeply into the vast darkness to carefully compose each shot, as our eyes are not capable of fully seeing what a camera captures in a 10-second exposure. The patterns dance and form into new shapes, like chiffon trails and curtains. The colors vary dramatically from night to night, with greens and pink as the basis. It is hard to describe how seeing something so powerful places me differently on the earth, recognizing the prominence of the sun, even at night. What a gift to experience this phenomenon, magnifying why the spiritual power of the aurora is a sacred part of Dene First Nation culture.
M31Andromeda Galaxy Large

Photo by R. Gendler
Andromeda Galaxy, IRAS 00400+4059, M 31, Messier 31, NGC 224, 2002
Gifted by Jonathan and Elizabeth Howland